D&D 5E How do you define “mother may I” in relation to D&D 5E?

[clearstream]

However, I would say that a rules system that does nothing to prevent making the wrong judgment… no hard rules or principles of play to guide play… is flawed. Does it mean the whole system is crap? That anyone who enjoys the game is somehow wrong? No, of course not. It’s simply pointing out that the rules system is not perfect.

The rules system of 5e is extremely skillfully put together. Yet, they do not supply principles that would as you say be very helpful. As noted up-thread, I think they have a reason for that, albeit that it leaves 5e groups to rely on their own principles.

Of course. What makes it even harder is not providing such principles of play. The 5E books may hint at some or suggest some, but not in as direct away as possible, and often contradicted in other parts of the text (such as the Role of the Dice section in the DMG).

So true. My ideal would be that 6e articulates a consistent set of principles. Although I think for essentially commercial reasons it will not. Perhaps an opportunity for third parties?

 

[FrogReaver]

I didn’t attribute such comments to you; I simply pointed out how prevalent they are in the thread.

If I may.

My position and @clearstream's has been misconstrued quite a bit in this thread, especially recently (I'm sure yours has as well). Your comment touched on the same misconceptions that we have been defending our positions against. So to us, your post sounded like more of the same. If it wasn't great! Personally, I would go a step further and say that IMO I've not seen anyone here actually raise the position you are talking about - I think all such takes here are misconceptions. But this is probably not something really worth debating - it's not going to be productive - but hopefully it helps provide perspective and understanding.

However, I would say that a rules system that does nothing to prevent making the wrong judgment… no hard rules or principles of play to guide play… is flawed. Does it mean the whole system is crap? That anyone who enjoys the game is somehow wrong? No, of course not. It’s simply pointing out that the rules system is not perfect.

IMO, no rules systems are perfect. They all are reflections of the engineering principle of constraints and tradeoffs.

Of course. What makes it even harder is not providing such principles of play. The 5E books may hint at some or suggest some, but not in as direct away as possible, and often contradicted in other parts of the text (such as the Role of the Dice section in the DMG).

IMO, 5e was designed as a 'bring your own princples' type of game. We can ask the question:

Are there any play principles that are outright bad?
Are there any sets of play principles that yield the principles being in constant conflict with each other?

Let's avoid those, but otherwise use whatever principles you desire to get the game working to your tables liking. Oh! And don't be afraid to add nuance to your play principles.

 

[FrogReaver]

The rules system of 5e is extremely skillfully put together. Yet, they do not supply principles that would as you say be very helpful. As noted up-thread, I think they have a reason for that, albeit that it leaves 5e groups to rely on their own principles.


So true. My ideal would be that 6e articulates a consistent set of principles. Although I think for essentially commercial reasons it will not. Perhaps an opportunity for third parties?

I can see a starting set for new DM's, but I would not be happy with a codified set for all D&D. Something like, if you are new and don't know what play principles to follow try these at least until you have some time to evaluate what you like and don't. Different principles can be used to make different games within the same ruleset feel very different. I rather like that.

 

[FrogReaver]

There doesn't really need to be any special sacredness for combat rules. Ability checks are governed by rules that differ in important ways from those governing combat. Compare the procedure for an attack action (PHB195) to that for actions outside of combat that may lead to ability checks (PHB174, DMG237.)

Great Point. The rules themselves are different for in combat abilities and ability checks. The attack rules in combat never ask the DM to make an adjudication about whether the player will automatically succeed, fail or whether there is uncertainty. Ability checks do.

So maybe the in combat/out of combat difference is a little more hard coded than table chosen principles.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Trying for a somewhat more gracious response to @tetrasodium:

You seem to have latched onto the fact that these things ended in the same place, which I have already clarified was simply a matter of conforming to what actually happened in my campaign. I don't recall whether the actual process involved discussing the Ritual move or not, as I said. The players took the lead on this. They actually went to several more locations than the ones I listed, I just wanted to keep it sufficiently light on detail to not bog down the discussion.

But, since it seems the issue at hand is the presumption that these three scenarios ending in the same place means the DM had pre-chosen an ending, which was not my intention, sure, we can break that symmetry. It will make the examples harder to compare, but sure. For brevity, I won't write it out as full dialogue, just as a quick summary. Again, this is based on stuff that actually happened in my game.

Situation: the players are trying to take down a woman who has cooperated with a wicked succubus, and said succubus who is dabbling in devil-like contracts in addition to her usual temptations in order to become something more powerful than either demon or devil alone.

"Full" MMI
Players propose, in sequence, the following actions: tail the woman (doesn't work, the woman is supernaturally good at evading detection, probably a succubus power), consult Waziri tomes on the subject (information on demons is restricted and party isn't trusted enough to read it), try to contact the succubus to whom the tiefling bard is related (she's busy and can't help right now), use divination magic to figure out where the succubus is (fails without explicit explanation because the succubus isn't actually on the mortal plane), consult with Safiqi priests on how to exorcise demons (same as library), examine public records of the woman's multiple deceased spouses to find any patterns (fails because the records aren't actually public.) Finally, the players propose the solution the DM had approved all along, breaking into her home while she's out at a party so they can find the demon-altar where she performs her rituals, set a trap on it to kill both, and then lie in wait for the woman to return. The players enjoy the difficulty of sneaking in without alerting any of the guards or putting the innocent servants at risk, and by the end, make preparations for an Epic Showdown Fight.

Here, MMI is used clearly in service of railroading, but both parts (denying plausible actions and forcing a specific outcome) are a problem. Every proposed solution is shut down until the players, grasping at straws, stumble upon the one "intended" solution, which was necessary so the DM could deploy the two important bits of prepared content (the stealth infiltration and surprising the woman and the succubus.)

"Light" MMI
Players propose, in sequence, the following actions: tail the woman (they attempt to, but must roll Defy Danger with WIS every single round,* meaning eventually they get a 6- and she eludes them), consult Waziri tomes on the subject (they are allowed access to generic information, which doesn't reveal anything useful), try to contact the succubus to whom the tiefling bard is related (she's willing to meet, but has to get approval from the convent), use divination magic to figure out where the succubus is (they learn she isn't located on the mortal plane, but rather spends most of her time in Hell/the Abyss other than brief forays into the mortal world), consult with Safiqi priests on how to exorcise demons (they are offered exorcism training, but only one person gets even a partial success on Spout Lore, so they don't actually learn the process), consult public records of the woman's multiple deceased spouses to find any patterns (most records are sealed, though they do see some records of the house's original occupant long ago having requested some interesting renovation stuff.) This final thing nudges the party into infiltrating in the dead of night while the lady of the house is at a late-night party, so the guards and servants are gone. While they don't know how to exorcise the demon, they find her altar. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, they take detailed notes of the altar's construction and location and then depart, hoping that with actual proof of demonic activity, they can get the Safiqi to help them with the problem.

Here we see a lot of what I've called "covert" MMI. The DM may have genuinely been trying to respect player agency, simply seeing his adjudications as fair and appropriate for the context, but it cashes out as finding ways to say "no" until the party does the one thing the DM knows will work, even if that isn't his intent. There's no specially-prepared content awaiting them, and the players decide to come back later rather than force a fight right away. There's much less outright railroading, but still plenty of effective stonewalling even though the players are not technically told they can't do any of the things involved. The players might not even notice that MMI is in play if this is an unusual one-off, but if this is typical of the game's pattern, annoyance is likely to build up over time, as they come to believe they have to read the DM's mind.

*Technically, this is against both the spirit and the rules of Dungeon World, but it's the closest approximation I can make of "make a Perception check every round," because...DW just doesn't do that, not normally anyway. This is an example of the rules themselves discouraging a particular bad DM action; you have to intentionally go off-label in order to do the crappy thing.

Zero MMI
The PCs learn the woman basically only goes to parties or stays at home, and on interacting with her, they find her quite pleasant and circumspect--she's a model guest and a sparkling conversationalist. Suspicious but unsure, they pay a visit to the tiefling Bard's succubus great-grandmother, who is happy to meet with her great-grandson. She offers her help, and explains things the party can do. However, the Bard doesn't want to put his great-grandmother at risk, so he instead asks her if she can grant him her powers. She does. They seek a private meeting with the woman, see if she can be reasoned with. They discover, to everyone's surprise (due to a very favorable roll), that the woman is actually an innocent victim manipulated and coerced by the succubus, and she gladly offers to help them take down this demon who has plagued her life. The Ranger, recently anointed as a devotee of the Resolute Seeker, independently consults old Safiqi records and finds a disused technique for isolating places from planar travel as part of exorcism (no roll needed, but using the technique will require one). Forearmed so, they prepare for a showdown with this empowered succubus.

Nothing pre-determined here, except by already-established backstory (e.g. it had always been the case, since the first month of the game, that the Bard's maternal great-grandmother was a succubus) which was authored by the players, or general knowledge established in previous adventures. The above is actually pretty much exactly what happened in-game, albeit at a fairly high level of abstraction.

Each path is quite different, this isn't a situation where the end state is identical for each one. Does that satisfy your desire that the DM be open to what the players want? Because, lest we forget, the whole point of MMI is that it DOESN'T embrace what the players want to attempt. It closes off option after option for one reason or another (usually, because the option doesn't meet a ridiculously high standard of "realism" or "making sense" etc., or because the DM has an excessively skeptical position about anything the players might attempt that could give them "power" etc.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The rules system of 5e is extremely skillfully put together.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I find it slapdash at best in several places, largely because they wasted the first year and a half of the public playtest. Evinced by extremely late-term problems like the "ghoul surprise," for example, or the collapse of Specialties and thus the death of the repeatedly-promised "Warlord Fighter." When things finally came down to the wire, they were forced to work with what they had, because they just didn't have time to address things. That's what resulted in the obviously lower design quality of the Ranger, as well as the flaws in the Monk (especially Four Elements), Sorcerer, and Warlock (especially Bladelock). Though at least the Bladelock got a kludge patch via Hexblade.

And that's to say nothing about 5e's CR system, which even fans of 5e will usually admit is little better (and possibly worse) than just eyeballing things.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The rules system of 5e is extremely skillfully put together. Yet, they do not supply principles that would as you say be very helpful. As noted up-thread, I think they have a reason for that, albeit that it leaves 5e groups to rely on their own principles.

Yeah, I think we mostly agree here. They intentionally designed some ambiguity into the rules to reach as wide an audience as possible. To allow for multiple approaches to play.

But this comes with a drawback. The lack of one approach to play creates a situation where different people may have different ideas, different expectations about how play will go. Some of these mismatched expectations will be obvious. Others will be deceptively subtle.

So true. My ideal would be that 6e articulates a consistent set of principles. Although I think for essentially commercial reasons it will not. Perhaps an opportunity for third parties?

Given their attempt to allow multiple approaches to play, I don’t think one set list of principles is likely or all that feasible. I’d settle for a general list of suggested principles to help guide people. It’s probably the best that can be hoped for.

I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.

.

IMO, no rules systems are perfect. They all are reflections of the engineering principle of constraints and tradeoffs.

Sure! That’s part of my point.

IMO, 5e was designed as a 'bring your own princples' type of game. We can ask the question:

Are there any play principles that are outright bad?
Are there any sets of play principles that yield the principles being in constant conflict with each other?

Let's avoid those, but otherwise use whatever principles you desire to get the game working to your tables liking. Oh! And don't be afraid to add nuance to your play principles.

I think it’d be good if the books actually did this.

Great Point. The rules themselves are different for in combat abilities and ability checks. The attack rules in combat never ask the DM to make an adjudication about whether the player will automatically succeed, fail or whether there is uncertainty. Ability checks do.

So maybe the in combat/out of combat difference is a little more hard coded than table chosen principles.

The combat rules are much more precise than the non-combat rules. There’s still some need for rulings in combat, but not the absolute reliance on rulings such as the non-combat process requires.

 

[Hussar]

IMO, D&D groups often have an unspoken/unwritten principle that combat rules should be played as more binding than the rest of the game rules. This is a very common principle across D&D tables.

I'm not sure that' true though. I think it7s much more the unspoken/unwritten principle is that rules (all rules) should be played as more binding than anything else.

So, the players, upon learning that that the DM will interpret anything not specifically covered by the rules less favorably than anything covered by the rules, will be taught to default to leveraging the rules over relying on DM judgement. And the more closely the players rely on the rules and not the DM's judgment, the more pronounced the issue of MMI becomes when situations come up that the rules do not cover.

I know you get annoyed by me saying that DM's interpretations are often far more restrictive than the rules, but, I do honestly believe this to be true. If the party infiltrates a bad guy's lair with an Arcane Eye, they get all the information with zero chance of failure. If the party uses Rope Trick or Leomund's Hut, they get their full rest and don't face an ambush in the morning - exactly the result that they wished.

But, as soon as the DM is allowed to interpret the situation, they will do so in such a way that the players will never get a result that is as good as what they could have done by following the rules, never minding actually getting a better result for being creative. That's why MMI is often so egregious in groups and causes such friction. The players can pretty easily look at the situation and think, "Hrmmm, if I had just cast Leomund's Hut, we would have gotten our full rest and there would have been no ambush. Why am I bothering to use my character background here?"

Or another example that came up on the boards some time ago when discussing exploration. The party rescues a child in the wilderness and sets up camp with Leomund's Hut. The DM decides that the child wanders out of the hut during the night and attracts wandering monsters. Pure MMI. The party could not do anything to prevent this, short of tying the child up. All to create "challenges" for the party. And the response was, "Well, it's the DM's job to create challenges" with wide eyed innocence.

It's no wonder that players turtle up.

 

[Ovi]

This may do disservice to other posters' comments, and certainly does to mine. Nowhere in my comments do I say that the DM exercised the right judgement. What I suggest is that they exercised the wrong judgement while still following the game rules. Their judgement erred in the following of principles, not rules.

As @FrogReaver has argued, there's really no part of the system that one cannot misapply if erring on principles.

Well, he said "justify," as in "explain how the decision was justified." You do this again here. You explain how the ruling was within the rules*. You don't have to say that it's the bestest or rightestmostest choice to justify something. For the record, I think that the ruling made by @hawkeyefan's is indeed within the rules, and therefore justifiable, even if there's just about no explanation that I'd personally like. This is foundational to my claim that 5e is has strong MMI leanings, and that it takes an equally strong social contract to work against how the system is structured. I mean, it is the edition of GM Empowerment.

*The appeal to "principles" here is odd, as 5e has only some vague statements that the ruling made doesn't actually violate. Anything further is smuggling in assumptions not generally held.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Or another example that came up on the boards some time ago when discussing exploration. The party rescues a child in the wilderness and sets up camp with Leomund's Hut. The DM decides that the child wanders out of the hut during the night and attracts wandering monsters. Pure MMI. The party could not do anything to prevent this, short of tying the child up. All to create "challenges" for the party. And the response was, "Well, it's the DM's job to create challenges" with wide eyed innocence.

I’m often amazed at how many GMs… myself included… will not want to allow what might be considered an “easy win”.

As if any given challenge is going to be the final challenge.

If they get an easy win, especially through clever play or resource use… best to allow it. There’s always the next adventuring day and infinite tarrasques.